What I’m Into October 2016

October’s been a bit of an odd month. I fell and injured my ankle at the beginning of the month, and while I’m now well enough to hobble around my apartment without too much trouble, it’s still a hassle to do things like shop for groceries or go to campus. So it’s been a slower month on a lot of levels: less doing my own cooking, less going out and doing stuff (unless the stuff involved sitting down a lot), more coming into contact with my own limitations. It’s definitely been humbling. I am, as usual, linking up with Leigh Kramer to talk about what I’ve been up to this month.

Reading

Two of my long-awaited holds came in this month: Liane Moriarty’s Truly Madly Guilty and Glennon Doyle Melton’s Love Warrior. I read each of the books in one sitting. I have to say that it was bittersweet reading Love Warrior knowing that Glennon and Craig have since broken up, though. I was definitely rooting for that marriage. I also read Once Upon a Dream, part of a series of alternate fairy tale endings that follow the Disney movie storyline pretty closely until the point of divergence.

Watching

I watched through the entirety of Switched at Birth this month, and really enjoyed learning more about deaf culture. I often cross-stitch while I watch TV and don’t watch the screen super closely, so it was interesting to have to watch more closely, since so much of the dialogue is signed and subtitled rather than spoken audibly. I’m looking forward to seeing how they wrap up the series next year. I also watched Queen of Katwe in theatres (so good! Lupita Nyongo and David Oyelowo are, of course, fantastic, and Madina Nalwanga did a fabulous job as Phiona), and all three Back to the Future movies (for the first time! I feel like I get so many more pop culture references now, and it’s amusing to see 1985’s take on 2015 in 2016) at home.

I also got to see a performance of Marathon of Hope: The Musical, which tells the story of Terry Fox, a Canadian legend who lost a leg to bone cancer and subsequently embarked on a run across Canada to raise money for cancer research. Nathan Carroll did just a phenomenal job as Terry Fox, and the rest of the cast rounded out the play well. This run at the St Jacobs Country Playhouse was the first run of Marathon of Hope, and I’m excited to see where it goes next.

Playing

I tried playing Stone Age for the first time, and really enjoyed it. I think it’s my favourite game in the Euro strategy resource allocation genre. It’s got a nice varied mechanic without being too complicated. It doesn’t hurt that I won, which often goes a long way to giving me a good first impression of a game.

That’s it for me for the month. Be sure to check out Leigh’s blog for more link-up submissions.